AUBURN — The City Council has given the Planning Board more specific direction on a previous request to review the long-debated income standard in the Agriculture and Resource Protection zone.

The vote Monday came after the council passed a resolution in September asking the board to provide an opinion on whether the city should eliminate the income standard, which requires a certain level of income be derived from agriculture activities as a condition to build a residence in the zone. The zone contains some 20,000 acres.

Mayor Jason Levesque said the order was intended to give more clear direction to the Planning Board, asking the board to hold hearings and provide recommendations on amendments to the zoning language that would remove the standard.

On Monday, he said the council’s vote simply initiates a process that asks the Planning Board to come up with ideas on how to address a perennial issue in the city. However, others are wary of wading back into a debate that has been raised several times, with little change taking place due to concern from the public.

Those against removing the standard have argued that it’s been used as both a means to concentrate growth in the city’s urban neighborhoods, where there are services, and to ensure that farmland stays that way.

But those in favor of striking it down say it’s been unfair for the majority of taxpayers, including many who own property in the zone and can’t live there, and has stifled new housing at a time when it’s needed.

As the ordinance is written now, if the income standard was removed, a landowner would still need to have at least 6.1 acres in order to build a home.

“There is not a foregone conclusion,” Levesque said regarding the request to the Planning Board. “I hope they come up with some good viable options to protect prime (agricultural) land while still allowing individuals to have the right to build a home on their land.”

Councilor Leroy Walker said the board could recommend other options like requiring the property be owned for a number of years before building could take place, but said, “We’re trying to find ways for people to live on land they’ve owned for years.”

The renewed debate over the income standard also comes as Auburn is already embroiled in other debates over residential zoning and Lake Auburn watershed changes.

Councilor Rick Whiting, who earlier in the meeting had voted against rezoning the Court Street area, said the public already “feels like we have an all-out assault on zoning rules in the city,” and adding the agricultural zone debate would result in “raging turmoil.”

Levesque said the proposed language changes would not allow single-family homes in the areas of the agricultural zone that are in the watershed overlay district.

A council memo on the item, brought forward by councilors Walker and Steve Milks, asks the board for an opinion on whether to eliminate the income standard as well as “the current strip zoning limitations” in all areas outside of the Lake Auburn watershed overlay zone “in an effort to try to help address the housing shortage and demand upon existing housing stock.”

The question of whether Auburn should expand its residential strips, aimed at creating more buildable area for residential development, was taken up in December 2021, but tabled indefinitely.

Auburn resident Stephen Beal said the issues are “two significant changes to existing ordinances” and “should not be joined together.”

The council ultimately voted 4-3 on the Planning Board order, with Councilors Whiting, Belinda Gerry and Dana Staples opposed.

Gerry said the council “decided a few years back to do what we could do to preserve (agricultural) land.”

“Now, we’re trying to not preserve our heritage, and take land and turn it into expensive homes,” she said.

The council debated the issue in 2019, ultimately lowering the income standard from 50% of a family’s income to 30% of an individual’s income. According to the memo, the change has not yielded any increase in new farms.

Last year, proposed state legislation to eliminate the use of income standards failed.

Levesque said lowering the standard to 30% was a compromise by staff in 2018 that “has shown to have not worked.”

“It’s time to reset this, we can’t wait another 60 years,” he said.

Councilor Joe Morin said the move is “an opportunity to get different perspectives” on the issue, especially as LD 2003, the state legislation on zoning to encourage more housing, becomes law next year.

The memo states the city’s Sustainability and Natural Resources Management Board will also provide an opinion on the issue.

According to the minutes of the board’s Oct. 13 meeting, the board said the “response to the council should be ‘no change,’ or ‘change recommended with qualifications.'”

The original council resolution requested that the Planning Board provide an opinion no later than March 20, 2023.